


Never Love a Man

by Fangirlingmanaged



Series: The Note [5]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Parent Tony Stark, Post-Break Up, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Precious Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 19:08:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18580768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlingmanaged/pseuds/Fangirlingmanaged
Summary: Tony thought Steve leaving would be it, for him. There's only so much damage a man can take. Losing the love of his life, like this, felt worse than the shrapnel. But sometimes even those with red in their ledger are blessed with one last miracle.Tony knows Peter is his.





	Never Love a Man

**Author's Note:**

> Poem is Lament Over Love by Langston Hughes

It had been the best two years of Tony’s life.

 

And now they were gone, and he was left wondering how he could have ever thought that he was worthy of it. How his fool-self ever thought that the blood on his hands wouldn’t exact its revenge for the lives he’d taken.

 

The Merchant of Death had wreaked havoc on the world for a very long time. It was only fair that it came to collect tenfold.

 

 

                                                            ***

            When Peter meets with him at the hospital in Stuttgart (God, how he hated Stuttgart, hadn’t Loki been enough?) there’s a trembling in his hands as he moves to hold Tony’s.

 

 FRIDAY had had just enough power to send a distress signal for _someone_ to come collect him. Those two hours and fifteen minutes had been the worst of his life. The thermal undersuit had barely kept him alive as the freezing cold of the bunker seeped into his bones. With the weight of the metal, the jagged pain that he knew would scar on his chest, and what was sure to be a hell of a concussion Tony had honestly thought he wouldn’t make it. It wasn’t just the physical beat down that he had taken, but the fact that every time he turned his head there was the glint of the sun on vibranium and all he could think about was “ _he left you. He left you. He left you. You weren’t enough. You were never going to be enough”_ running around in his head.

 

            Tony had cried, big heaving sobs that knocked the breath out of him and left him feeling hollow, as he laid in his back and wished, with every ounce of his being, that he wouldn’t have to face the other side of this battle. He had been resilient, had kept his promise to Yinsen for as long as he could, but there were things that even iron couldn’t hold. _Steve_ had been one of those. The worst part, the most horrible part of it all, was that as he finally gave in and his eyes began to close, the only thing that had brought him comfort had been the thought of Steve.

 

            Not the man that he had just met; the soldier with the hard eyes and the harder punches. Not the enemy who had kept him on his back like a turtled as he tried desperately to turn. Not the stranger who had looked him in the eyes as he beat him into the snow. No. As Tony lay in the ice, the slowness of his brain sending alarm bells through the rest of his body, the only think he could think of was _his_ Steve. The partner who let him sit on his lap as they read and carded his fingers through his hair, lips pressed against Tony’s hair, as the genius read his poetry out loud. The man who brought him coffee during his work binges, and snorted before he laughed; the man who played fetch with the bots and helped Peter with his homework. The boy who drew Tony when he wasn’t looking and kissed him on each mole on his face and his collarbone, all thirty seven of them, as he was drifting off to sleep.

 

            Thinking of _his_ Steve had brought him comfort and pain in equal measure.

 

            So when Vision came into the compound with a team of paramedics behind him, Tony was with that boy. The boy with the crystal eyes and the gold-spun hair was holding his hand, mouth twisted into an unhappy grimace of regret, as Vision carefully helfted Tony out of his suit and onto a gurney. The boy’s eyes were brimming with tears, and Tony blinked. _It’s all right,_ Tony wanted to say, _I’m all right, sweetheart. It will all be okay._

           

            But Tony didn’t have the words to say that, anymore, and his eyes were drooping. His limbs felt like they were filled with lead; he felt heavier then than when he was in the armor. So he let his eyes close, one hand reaching out to the boy that had been jostled away by the paramedics but he was gone. Tony’s fingers stretched, desperately, his eyes roaming around but the boy was gone. _Left you, remember? You were never good enough_. So he closed his eyes and hoped to never wake up.

 

            Yet he did, because he could never leave it alone, because there was too much to do and too little of himself left to do it. Because there was a boy, a child, with trembling fingers and big brown eyes looking down at him in fear. Because when Tony reached out the kid, _his_ kid, reached out with trembling fingers and grasped his. Because there was his kid telling him he was going to be okay, and Tony would burn every star in the sky to make that true for him.

 

                                                                        ***

            So Tony woke up. Tony got his chest patched up. Tony got a cast on his arm and a brace on his ankle and wrist and a hell of a lot bandages and butterfly band-aids. Tony got the card to a therapist that he let fly out his window on his way to the airport. Tony got a new job with the Security Council, and another one with the Accords board, and yet another as a consultant for the defense team for the Rogue Avengers, and he was still building, and creating and designing.

 

            He was exhausted and in pain, a bleeding wound in his chest that ached and splintered every time he so much as looked at the naked skin on his hip where the ink was, and at all the memories permeated in every room of his home. He had insomnia and never ending migraines and a tremor in his hand that just never went away. Tony could not be handed things. He could not have people close. He could not feel someone’s breath on his face or a touch on his wrists. Tony could not leave his home without sunglasses and _the_ watch.

 

            But he was awake and breathing and trying to function. Because he had a kid that came by almost every day, rode the subway because he didn’t want to inconvenience Mr. Hogan or overstay his welcome. He had a kid that touched him comfort even when Tony’s anxiety was making him act like a lunatic. He had a kid who babbled and laughed and sang just as loud as Tony did when he was in the zone. He had a kid at home who ate cold pizza and watched television upside down and cuddled with DUM-E for naps and fell asleep more often than not with his head on Tony’s shoulder.

 

            Tony woke up, every day, because he had a kid at home that went from calling him Mr. Stark, to boss, to Tony, to Mr. Dad, and Tony would now, more than ever, burn everything in the universe to see him safe.

                                                                        ***

“Hey, Mr. Dad?” Peter said, one day exactly eight months and twenty three days _after_. They were in the living room of the compound, Tony having moved across to the west wing when he couldn’t stomach to breath the air that once contained _him_. “Do you every think about—I dunno, dating again?”

 

            Tony, who had shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth, in haled a kernel the wrong way and started choking. Peter squawked and started patting his back with a guilty expression on his face. Tony tussled his hair to show him that he was fine before taking a big gulp of his drink. His hand instinctively went to his hip, where _his_ mark was, but Peter pretended not to notice. They had grown quite accustomed to this game, the both of them.

 

            “I—I don’t really think about that sort of thing, Spiderling,” Tony said with a tight smile. Peter scooted closer and Tony raised his arm with a sigh, one hand going straight to the kid’s unruly hair that reminded him so much of his own. “I am all right, you know.”

 

            “Sometimes you’re not,” Peter said quietly, head burrowing further into the space between Tony’s neck and his shoulder. Tony let his head fall back onto the back of the couch, blinking back tears. God. Why did this never get easier. “Sometimes, when you think no one is looking, you get this… you look sad. You look sad _all the time,”_ Peter’s breath hitched, and Tony closed his eyes tight. “But those times it’s worse. And you spend all the time in the workshop.”

 

            “That’s my job, Pete,” Tony joked in an attempt at levity, but Peter is stubborn, just as stubborn as Tony or worse. Like Steve.

 

            “This is different. You never go out. You can’t even be in the same room as Viz. You don’t let Ms. Potts in. Happy is barely around and even with Rhodey you just… I just. I just want you to be happy,” the last part is a whisper in the sudden quiet of the room. FRIDAY has turned off the television and the lights are down low.

 

            “Pete, the time I spend with you is the highlight of every day for me, okay? I know—I know we don’t talk much about feelings and what not, but I am all right. As—as all right as I’m ever going to be, and that’s because of you. For a while, I thought I would never—I didn’t think I would get this far, but you’ve helped. God, you have helped so much. I just—there is a part of me that is always going to be missing, kid. I don’t expect you to get it, but—but dating isn’t—I _can’t_.” the confession tears itself out Tony’s throat and it hurts. It hurts to much to admit he’s been ruined for everyone else.

 

            “Because—because of—”

           

            “Yeah, Pete. Because. That’s just the way it is.”

 

            “But you haven’t tried—maybe. Maybe it would work. If you—”

 

            “ _I’m goin’ down to the river_

_An’ I ain’t goin’ down there to swim;_

_Down to the river,_

_Ain’t goin’ there to swim._

_My true love’s left me_

_And I’m goin’ there to think about him,”_ Tony recites quietly.

 

            Peter pulls away with a frown on his face, but Tony shakes his head. It takes him a while, minutes or hours he doesn’t know, but eventually he finds enough strength to sit up properly. He scrubs a hand over his eyes, and when he looks up Peter is looking at him with that honest, open way only he can muster. A part of him, the broken jagged bitterness he carries every day, tells him that he’s being stupid. That he’s shared this part of himself with someone else before and he paid dearly for it. The other part, though, the tiny part that’s been sheltered by Peter’s visit and his honest affection, tells him to try.

 

            “It’s this poem I’ve been thinking about. I know, poetry isn’t really our thing. Guys like us are supposed to like science, but—”

 

            “Poetry helps,” Peter blurts out. Tony looks at him curiously and cocks his head. “MJ lets me see hers, sometimes. It’s really good. She—sometimes she helps me put all this,” Peter makes a motion to his chest and his brain and then pretends to make a ball out of it and Tony exhales in relief. Someone _gets_ it. “into words. It—sometimes it helps me stop crying.”

 

            “Yeah, exactly,” Tony says and he can feel the tightness in his throat and the heat in his eyes.

 

            “Would you—would you tell me the poem? if you—if that’s okay?”

 

            “Yeah, I think—I think I could,” Tony says, a warmth spreading through his chest as he leans back against the couch and Peter rests his head on his shoulder. “Don’t take it personal, though, okay?”

 

            Peter makes an inquiring noise but doesn’t pull away.

 

            “It—I remembered it, because of you. I don’t—it’s just my shit talking, though. It’s not about—I mean.”

 

            “Mr. Dad?” Peter interrupts quietly. Tony’s mouth snaps shut. “You don’t have to explains. Sometimes—sometimes things just click.”

 

            “Yeah, okay,” Tony whispers into his hair. Then, because he’s never found anything that gives him quiet as much strength as this child in his arms does, he buries his head in the kid’s hair and begins.

 

            “ _I hope my child’ll_

_Never love a man._

_I say I hope my child’ll_

_Never love a man._

_Love can hurt you_

_Mo’n anything else can._

_I’m going down to the river_

_An’ I ain’t goin’ there to swim;_

_Down to the river,_

_Ain’t goin’ there to swim._

_My true—my tr—true love’s le—leh—left m—e_ ” Tony’s voice gives. His hand trembles.

_And I’m goin’ there to think about him.”_

 

            Tony feels Peter’s head turn into his shoulder, the hot sting of tears on his skin, but he forces himself to keep going. Peter holds tighter onto him.

 

            “ _Love is like whiskey,_

_Love is like red, red wine._

_Love is like whiskey,_

_Like sweet red wine._

_If you want to be happy_

_You got to love all the time.” Like I do you_ , Tony thinks to the boy in his arms. And the next breath hurts a little less.

 

“ _I’m goin’ up in a tower_

_Tall as a tree is tall,_

_Up in a tower_

_Tall as a tree is tall._

_Gonna think about my man—_

_And let my fool-self fall.”_

 

 _This_ Tony knows he can never tell Peter. It would hurt the kid too much to know how far and how deep Tony fell into that hole when he came back. How home was nothing, now, a mirage that he was never worthy of having. All Peter knows, now, is that Tony decided that he wanted to move forward. That he wanted to start again now that everything he knew was shattered into pieces at his feet. Peter doesn’t need to know how close he came to recreating those last two lines.

 

 _Because of you_ , Tony thinks as he presses a kiss to Peter’s soft hair. _I didn’t do it because of you._

 

“Dad?” Peter says, so quietly and tremulous Tony’s chest tightens. It’s the first time he’s ever called him dad.

 

“Yeah, kiddo?”

 

“Thanks for telling me. I’m so sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry for what he did,” and he sounds it too. He sounds like he means it.

 

And it’s all it takes for Tony to break down. To cry like he did that day, alone in the snow with a jagged wound on his chest. But it’s better, too, because Tony isn’t alone. Tony has his kid, and that’s all that’s enough. Peter is more than enough.


End file.
